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Pakistan's Nuclear Tests Bring
Swift, Painful U.S. Sanctions

By

Jonathan Karp, Carla Anne Robbins and

Hugh PopeStaff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Updated May 29, 1998 2:58 a.m. ET

Pakistan's decision to defy world pressure and match India with a series of nuclear-bomb tests Thursday threatens to hammer the fragile Pakistani economy and push the two impoverished South Asian enemies toward a destabilizing arms race.

President Clinton swiftly announced that the U.S. will impose trade sanctions on Pakistan, after Islamabad said it conducted five underground nuclear tests near the border with Afghanistan. Far more important, $2 billion worth of lending to Islamabad by the International Monetary Fund, the...